Artistic reconstruction of an early mammal, the Pantolambda. (Image credit: H Sharpe)
Researchers used dental analysis to investigate the life history of Pantolambda bathmodon, one of the earliest known groups of herbivores, that was about the size of a sheep. Razor thin slices of the teeth revealed the daily growth lines of the animal. The teeth was then vapourised to investigate its chemical makeup. The chemical signatures showed high levels of zinc deposited at birth and enrichment with barium when the animal suckled. This is the oldest known fossil where the results are seen, breaking the previous record holder by about 60 million years. The findings indicate how long pregnancies allowed mammals to dominate territories previously occupied by giant dinosaurs such as the T. Rex and the Triceratops.
At birth, mammalian babies had fully formed teeth and were highly mobile from the day they were born. The babies suckled for only a few months before being independant. While the inferred gestation time lines up to mammals of similar size today, the early mammal was found to have lived and died more rapidly, in comparison. The Pantolambda was ready to mate before its first birthday, and lived between three and four years on average. Most modern mammals of a similar size live for over 20 years.
Lead author of the paper, Gregory Funston says "Our research opens the most detailed window to date into the daily lives of extinct mammals. This unprecedented level of detail shows the kinds of lifestyles that make placental mammals special, evolved early in their evolutionary history. We think that their babies' longer gestation period could have nurtured large body sizes faster than other mammals, which may be why they became the dominant mammals of today." Researcher Steve Brusatte says, "When the asteroid knocked off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, some mammals survived, and they ballooned in size really quickly to fill the ecological niches vacated by T. rex and Triceratops and other giant dinosaurs. Being able to produce large babies, which matured for several months in the womb before being born, helped mammals transform from the humble mouse-sized ancestors that lived with dinosaurs to the vast array of species, from humans to elephants to whales, that are around today."
A paper describing the findings has been published in Nature.
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